Quick Tokyo Trip - C&P Exam and a City Stroll

Took a quick trip up to Tokyo last week to finish up my C&P exams. The videos didn't exactly turn out great because apparently (insert "Apparently Kid" meme) when I thought I was switching between front and back cameras on my new phone, I was actually just hitting a pause button before the cameras swapped...missing out on tons of what I thought was cool footage. I'll figure it out one of these days.

Anyway...the Hotel Villa Fontaine Grand at Haneda Airport was great. While it was a bit far from the clinic that I had to visit, it did allow me to easily enter into the airport without having to grab a taxi or bus (although I did have to grab a bus from Terminal 3 back over to Terminal 1 where my domestic flight was arriving/departing from). It was really convenient and had tons of shops and restaurants right there in the Haneda Gardens area, all very much walkable from the hotel.

There was a Go!Go! Curry really close-by...so of course I had it on arrival and then lounged around the hotel since it was rainy and dark once I got there. The spicy curry had my ears sweating but the Asahi certainly helped.

On the second day, I woke up early and headed up to Roppongi for my appointment. I got to the area with some time to kill, so I strolled around a little bit. The Tokyo Tower was nearby...pretty cool area with lots of little bars and some shopping. Found a Thai place after my appointment, over in Roppongi Hills, and had a little krapraow with a tom yum soup.

After a bite to eat, I decided I'd take off on a "short stroll" down to Temple University, so that I could check out the area before our son comes back here for college in the fall. 26,000 steps later...

So the stroll over to Temple took me right through Shibuya, and I'd circle back to this area for a beer and some window shopping after seeing the 'campus'.

Wifey was really interested in something from Pop Mart, so I stopped in one of the shops inside a huge mall. The shop didn't have much and it was the size of a shoe box, so I Google'd another shop nearby in Harajuku and took off to check it out. While it was a bigger, two-story shop, they still didn't have alot to choose from, so I decided to see what else I could find. The Hoka and OC stores had lines out the door and it looked like people were walking up and asking staff members what they had available. I checked out a four-story Onitsuka shop that left me with a similar dissatisfaction. With all this hustle and bustle, I quickly lost interest...retreating into a bar for some refreshment.

Two pints of porter later, 26,000 steps or more into a long day, and the sun about to set on the city, I headed back toward Haneda in a taxi. I GoGo'd it up once more since it isn't an option in Okinawa, had a few lighter beverages, and hit the sack.

The next morning, I boogied over to Terminal 3 and grabbed a bus back to Terminal 1 (Domestic), where I had a tasty onigiri or two for breakfast before heading back to Okinawa.

...and that'll do it for C&P exams, for now at least. VES was a great company to work with for all of my local appointments, as well as the one up in Tokyo. I suppose it's a waiting game for now. See y'all next time.